Looking at the calendar this morning I had a thought on how seasons are defined.

The Solar calendar, as embedded into our counting of the years, and according to the paper calendar I was looking at, defines seasons in terms of solstices and equinoxes. According to the printed calendar, winter doesn't start until December 22nd this year. By my reckoning, that means that the seasons are as follows (for 2008):

Winter: January, February, March (Dec 22-Mar 20)

Spring: April, May, June (Mar 21-Jun 20)

Summer: July, August, September (Jun 21-Sep 22)

Autumn: October, November, December (Sep 23-Dec 22)

That feels really odd to me. Thinking about it, it's because I'm heavily influenced by the Academic calendar, which follows more the ancient roman calendar, and defines seasons in whole months. For (2007 going into) 2008, that would be:

Winter: December, January, February

Spring: March, April, May

Summer: June, July, August

Autumn: September, October, November

Which is almost a whole month (ok, 3 weeks) off from the solar calendar. Not actually a lot of time, but it feels like a big difference. So,How do you define your seasonal calendar?

Addendum:Peeking at Wikipedia, I am reminded that these seasons refer to the temperate zone. Tropical seasons and polar seasons are obviously greatly different. I'm also reminded that these are seasons for dividing the year, and not seasons in the sense of hurricane season, blizzard season, or baseball season. Lastly, Wikipedia points out another yearly temperate cycle division called the Traditional Seasons, which set their seasonal *midpoints* at the equinoxes and solstices, so they start a whole month before the Roman, and 7 weeks before the Solar/Astronomical calendars. This reckoning was apparently embraced by different cultures, but some of you would recognize the Traditional seasonal boundaries as Samhain (early Nov), Imbolc (early Feb), Beltane (early May), and Lughnasadh (early Aug). This seems to be the classic agrarian calendar, with seasons of planting, growing, harvesting, and fallowing. In contrast, the Roman calendar seems equated with a meteorological calendar, i.e., linked to max and min temperatures, not max and min sunlight hours. See also The Straight Dope.

i was always taught in school that winter is dec, jan feb and spring is march april may etc. i was rather startled when i discovered that in America winter didn't start until almost the end of december. it was weird.

To be fair, it wasn't always this way. For some reason, calendar manufacturers have all switched to the Astronomical calendar, probably because it has a scientific backing, even if the science is only with regards to the planet's position relative to the sun, and has little or no bearing on what's actually happening on the planet.

I generally ignore what the official definitions are and define it by when the weather is shifting. While this has unbalanced seasons in Vermont--Winter is typically longer than others, it is reasonably similar to the Academic calender.

Yeah, that seems to follow the natural cycle, and is pretty common around here, especially when people are using seasons to refer to climate shifts, and not needing to pin down specific days/dates. Posing the question to some people who grew up in this state or just south (CT/RI) seems to indicate that Winter and Summer are both almost 4 months long, and that Spring and Fall are shorter.

For me, Spring gets pretty well crunched because of the timing of snows. March is typically the snowiest month, so the next two are spent budding and melting, but by June summer is in full bloom. Autumn lasts about when the leaves start turning and goes until the first snows really stick, which can be anytime in November, really, so that gets extended.

My brain is stuck in the seasons it learned growing up. They bear little relation to reality here in Boston.

Winter: November through Feb (until the first real rains or no-coat day)Spring: March through May (until the first hot/shorts/t-shirt day)Summer: June through August (until the first of the cold rains)Fall: Sept through November (until Thanksgiving)

As a result, March and April snows really tick me off. (Well, it's more that March *grayness* will tick me off.)

At ugrad, they had seasonal holidays such as the traditional "Stepping On The Coat" festival to signify to winter that it should blasted well leave already, and a "Passing of the Vegetables" festival in the Fall. Not sure if these are still observed, but I really like rituals of this sort to let people transition mentally. Yule, for example...the promise that, yes, eventually, the sun will return.

Winter in my mind is Dec-March or so. But I also tend to think of the Winter Solstice as mid-winter. (Yeah, that makes sense) Spring is April, May. Summer is June-mid-September. Fall is everything until the first appreciable snow. So, we're still in Fall as far as my mind is concerned.

I grew up with the solstices and equinoxes in my mind a lot, since my parents are astronomers. But those always struck me more as mid-season, rather than beginning of the season...

I'm totally with you on the confusion factor. I guess I tend to think of it by your school-year-influenced calendar, though I'm fully aware of the normal astronomical one.

Still, the weather can vary quite drastically away from any standard 3-months x 4 seasons scheme. Here in Yokohama/Tokyo this year, it was full-on summer (90F+, 90+ humidity) until roughly the Autumnal Equinox, then it was warm, sunny, pleasant, and vernal (read: not chilly like autumn's supposed to be) until some time in November. The leaves have only begun to change now, and it may be some time before they fall off and we're in full-on winter (though I've been told to not expect any snow :( ) ... I imagine it'll be cold up through February or March, beautiful from March through May, raining all through June (that's the fifth season - rainy season), and then back to heinously humid and hot July through August and into September.

Is this normal? Does this fit anyone's conceptions of when the four seasons should be or what they should feel like?

Meh. As long as we're on the subject, we *could* also talk about where different cultures place the New Year's and why...

Well, of course seasons are bordered by equinoxes and solstices. That's the way it's always been, at least for someone my age growing up in this country.

Informally, it's based on the weather (with a slight nod to astronomy--the sun has definitely started getting brighter by the time March starts, even if there's still a foot and a half of snow). Roughly:

Re: Necropost!

Yes, local weather conditions do seem to override anything the calendar might tell you. Thus that time in early october where you could wear shorts one day and sweater and scarf the next.

Does make m think twice about going someplace like Dublin, where the temperature tends to be between 40 and 80 (Farenheit for comparison) year round. I could make do with most days having some amount of rain for that. I know now why Hawaii is so popular... near tropical conditions, but with oceanic breezes that keep things near 75-80 for most of the year, down to maybe 60 in the winter.